


to die upon a kiss

by purplemechanics



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arya-centric, F/M, The Brotherhood Without Banners (ASoIaF), arya grows up with the brotherhood au, arya is afraid of sex, bc i need more of that in my life, being a woman is scary, don't look too close at the inconsistencies you'll get a migraine, that's a big one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:40:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22356547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplemechanics/pseuds/purplemechanics
Summary: “But is it really worth it, the work you do? Doesn’t it - Can’t you get - How could you possibly enjoy it?” Her words fall weak to her own ears, and suddenly, she’s embarrassed. The boys always laugh at her when they talk about sex and her shoulders stiffen and her ears get red. The women do not laugh at her like the boys do.“Oh, shekra,” Hela murmurs in her glistening Braavosi tongue. “Of course it can - and should - be enjoyable. Has no one ever told you this?”
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 29
Kudos: 242





	to die upon a kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. This is something I’ve been dealing with recently and it’s helping me to be able to put a character that I admire and love in the situation with me because it makes me feel less alone. That might cause some out-of-characterness in this and I apologize, but this is really more an exercise that I’m using to work towards getting over my fears. This isn't going to suit everyone, it's more for me. Title is highly bastardized from Othello, "I kissed thee ere I killed thee. No way but this, Killing myself, to die upon a kiss."
> 
> There are two scenes of sexual assault in this story (one is less detailed and one is more detailed), so please be warned, it may be triggering to some.

Arya first becomes acutely aware of her lot in the world the first time she feels her own blood on her fingers. It had come out of her in wet clumps, reddish-brown and sticky and altogether unpleasant to smell. She knows what it is but hasn’t the faintest idea of how to manage it. Septa Mordane had, of course, explained to her and Sansa what occurred when a girl flowered. Her sacred red rose bled, which signaled that she was ready and fit for bearing children. Arya certainly doesn’t feel fit to bear a child. She doesn’t feel fit for much anything, considering the circumstances. She’s close to a child herself, at three and ten. She has no possessions, which means no extra clothes or rags to stem the flow. What she has is dirt-stained and torn from endless weeks of travel through the forest.

Only one person knows the truth of her person, and she can’t quite figure out what else to do, so she tells him. The tips of his ears burn fiercely as he rips off the hem of his undershirt for her to use, but beyond a faint embarrassment, she doesn’t give much further thought to this minor frustration and the place that it comes from.

—

She starts to think about it more when men reach out to touch her in the shadowy corners of the Inn. The Brotherhood has been stationed here for long enough that no one spared her a second glance when she started lifting a serving tray onto her hip, or unrolling one of Jeyne’s spare aprons from the pantry. It’s easier to make friends that way, when you can flit in between everyone and offer them a warm bite. She finds, though, that some must think it an invitation.

She supposes she knows why it happens. Her hair has grown longer, falling chestnut to her shoulders when she cares to forego her braid. The shape of her face has changed, sharper now with less food and more age. Her eyes are wide, gray, the color of the ever-stormy sky. She has always been small, but different parts of her are small now, they rest in different places. At five and ten, she cuts a different image than she had all those years ago on the Kingsroad with her cropped hair.

Maybe the smallness is why they like her so much. They think her easy to catch.

So she slams a serving knife down into the worn wood of the table between someone’s fingers. She drops a heavy skillet of food onto someone’s knee. She hefts Gendry’s hammer over her shoulder like it’s nothing, and they always manage to think again, or find some excuse to make a hurried exit. Just as soon as the men that frequent the Inn take notice of her newfound form do they spread word that she is not to be touched, lest one desires to lose the hand that touched her.

—

One day not too far into her six and tenth year, she is pouring a bucket of old lard into the slop area that Jeyne designated in the far corner of the wood, _far_ away from where the scent would catch the breeze and drift to the Inn. The weather is kind, kinder than it has been recently. A warm breeze ruffles her hair and pulls at the edges of her cloak, so she figures no one can really blame her if her feet crunch over the wet, melting snow a bit slower than usual. The wooden bucket swings much lighter in her hand as she makes her way back towards the kitchen door, but a scream freezes her in her tracks. High pitched and shirked in desperation, Arya has heard this scream before. Images of dark and rain and mud and rats and stone and terror flash across her vision. She takes off running, the screaming more muffled than the first, but still present, ringing through the cold. It’s coming from behind the forge. She ducks inside, deigns to grab a sword or whatever it is Gendry’s working on at the moment when she hears the heavy thunder of boots on the ground outside. Several men have exited the Inn and are running to investigate the source of the screaming.

She follows them out back, sword in hand, but it dangles rather uselessly when she takes in the sight before her. The men from the Inn are pulling two large brutes off of a woman. Their manhoods dangle out of their clothes shamefully as men of the Brotherhood lay them to blows. The woman on the ground curls in on herself, attempting to drape her cloak over her exposed skin, her dark hair hiding her expression. There’s blood on the snow and in between the woman’s legs and it looks just like the woman’s heavy-throated sobs sound. Jeyne and another serving girl are kneeling at the woman’s side while the two men are being dragged to the front of the Inn, now out of Arya’s sight, and it occurs to her that all she has done is watched, not helped, not even tried. She swallows the bile in her throat and moves to step forward, to raise the woman off the ground, to clean the blood, to do _something_ , when a broad form blocks her way.

She doesn’t look up at his face, doesn’t need to. Gendry’s hands are on her upper arms when he turns her around and crowds her back towards the forge entrance, the sword in her hand continuing to dangle, as if she forgot herself, as if she forgot her dance. Her heart beats her blood rancid and she tastes it in her mouth.

She turns to face him when he’s got her inside, pulling the door shut behind him.

“Why did you-”

“You don’t need to see,” he interrupts before she can finish, not looking at her as he brushes past her and lays his cloak on his workbench. He fiddles with his work things and Arya’s mad that his hands aren’t shaking like hers are.

“I’ve seen this before,” she spits furiously, throwing the borrowed sword to the ground, not caring so much when it hits the dirt. “All those times at Harrenhal. Did you think I would have forgotten?”

“Of course not!” He seethes, but he seems sad, so much more sad than angry. “That doesn’t mean—”

“I should go help her,” Arya mutters, turning to go.

“What could you do?” Gendry asks, and she reels, because surely there must be _something._

“Not everyone thinks me as useless as you,” she hisses, turning back around to face him.

His face goes red like it does when he’s been working for hours, sweating and churning and hammering. “That’s not what I meant, Arry, for _fuck’s_ sake -”

“Make up your mind!” She shouts, picking up a stray piece of scrap from the bench next to her and throwing it childishly to the ground to lay alongside the sword. She doesn’t care that she’s acting stupid, he’s being worse. “I can’t be some highborn lady unfit to see some rapers get what they deserve” - she can hear it happening now out in the yard - “one second and then your friend Arry the next!”

He doesn’t have an answer besides the forge fire in his eyes and the jumping muscle of his jaw, so she reaches towards the door.

“Please stay,” he says like it hurts him to say. “Please. Just for a few minutes. Help me with the bellows.”

So she does, but only because she’s a good friend, not because she’s scared to go outside and see the aftermath, and certainly _not_ because she fears that when she finally goes inside to help and she pulls back the dark curtain of the poor woman’s hair, she’ll see her own face.

—

Supper one stormy night is roast fowl, nicer than the usual sort, thanks to a particularly auspicious hunt led by Harwin. Herbs and butter crust nicely over its cooked skin, and Arya thinks to compliment Jeyne the next time she passes by. Jeyne’s been tetchy as of late, unpredictable in her moods and not so free with her smiles. Willow says it happens to all girls eventually. It’ll be their turn next.

Anguy and Gendry are deeply engaged in discussion across the table from her, leaning closer together to heatedly debate the merits of an axe in a fight. (“Splits flesh as good as it splits wood, dunnit?” “A battle axe is different from a wood axe, you idiot-” “Don’t see why it has to be-”). Lem to her right keeps on tugging on the end of her braid. He’s done it before and it’s never bothered her as much as it bothers her now. Her skin feels like a loose blanket over her bones and nothing fits right and his fingers keep brushing up against her neck so he can pull. He honestly might not even notice he’s doing it, as enthralled as he is with the young village lady seated closer to the door, smiling shyly into her cup and casting her eyes downwards.

Lem laughs at something Anguy says and gives a particularly rough tug on her hair. She snaps and bats his hand away, a frustrated flush spreading across her cheeks. “Fuck _right off_ , Lem.”

He raises his hands in the air like he’s been caught and laughs, but isn’t too put off by her outburst. Anguy quickly pulls him into the axe debate, but Arya can’t bring herself to weigh in. She is playing with the handle of her mug, an indescribably foul mood resting just over her shoulders, when the door opens and a great wet gust of wind rouses every Inn resident from their meal. The loud complaints die down as the door shuts the blowing snow outside and the four figures who have just entered lower their headpieces.

The boys go silent all the way. One man and three women stand by the doorway. The man leaves the women, presumably to inquire about a place to spend the stormy night, but the women seem to know that they have the attention of the room. Their skin is tanned beyond any that Arya has ever seen, their hair dark and thick and falling to their waists once they pull it out of their hoods. One of them is very tall and takes a long time shrugging off her cloak when she goes to take a seat. Her green eyes sparkle in the torch and firelight. Her eyebrows are sharp and her lips are rounded. One of the shorter ones has an elegant curve to her nose, and an even more elegant curve to her bottom, the free-flowing silk of her dress accentuating her shape. The third has the most beautifully shaped face Arya has ever seen, her eyes seeming to rest in perfect position with the sharpness of her cheeks, the fullness of her lips. A piece of silver dangles from the top of her ear in ornamentation. The women seat themselves towards the center of the door and begin to converse in a language Arya doesn’t understand. The spell seems to break, and suddenly conversation fills the room once more.

Lem lets out a low whistle beside her. “Courtesans. Don’t look like any I’ve seen around here. Probably aren’t even from Westeros, eh?”

“Braavos,” Anguy contributes excitedly, and even staunch Gendry’s eyebrows are raised in appreciation. “Braavosi courtesans from Essos. I’ve heard of these ones. It’s said one night with them will sate you for the rest of your life. They’ve got magic in their cunts, or something.”

Arya snorts into her mug, resisting the urge to scrunch her shoulders and make herself smaller. She doesn’t care much that she’s different than the wildly beautiful foreigners, her hair short and in a braid, her form mostly hidden by one of Jeyne’s old blouses and a burlap skirt. She’ll let them have the men lusting after them as long as she doesn’t have to hear about it. “Seems a bit fanciful,” she sniffs, and the boys roar with laughter. Gendry clinks his mug with hers while he laughs. “Don’t know why they’d volunteer themselves with the likes of you even if they did.”

“Magic’s got to be shared!” Anguy insists. “They know their duty to the realm.”

Arya scowls. “This realm isn’t even theirs, idiot. They don’t owe anything to anyone. They choose to do that. Don’t they?”

“Of course they do,” offers Gendry. “And it can’t be all bad for them. Surely with the right man…”

And the boys are laughing again. She’s uncomfortable and stiff and she wishes they would stop. She rolls her shoulder and shifts in her seat.

“Aw, no need to be jealous, little wolf,” Lem teases, and her mood sours further. “No one could ever replace you as this establishment’s resident tease.” He pulls on her hair again, and before he’s even finished she’s slammed her fist as hard as she can into his jaw.

He yells and clutches his face, wide-eyed. “Don’t fucking touch me again,” she warns, pushing away from the table fiercely without saying goodnight. She storms into the kitchen and doesn’t say anything when Jeyne takes the red and burning hand she used to hit and wraps it in soft linen.

—

She’s bringing fresh linens around when the courtesans stop her. The tall one is lounging back on the bed in a set of silks that leaves very little to the imagination. The one with the silver earpiece is braiding the other one’s hair, chattering away in a language she doesn’t understand.

“Girl!” The woman on the bed calls as Arya passes by the door. If it were a man, she’d keep on walking. She stops.

She doesn’t say anything, just comes into the room to lay down a pile of fresh linens on the bare and rickety vanity in the corner. The woman from the bed gets up to stand in front of her, blocking her way to the door. “What’s your name?” She asks in an accent so smooth and sweet that Arya has to suppress a shiver.

“Arya,” she answers, then swallows, her throat is too dry.

“Mm, pretty,” says the woman, reaching out to brush the tips of Arya’s hair with the pads of her fingers. It feels far nicer than when Lem touches her hair.

One of the women in the corner laugh. “Hela is taken with you, little one. Men bring in the coin, for sure, but she is one among us who prefers the company of women.”

Arya can’t stop herself from blushing, and the woman called Hela grins. Her countenance is fierce and unladylike and so unlike what Arya would have expected from a soft and sweet courtesan. She finds herself smiling back. Hela turns over her shoulder to roll her eyes, her fingers still playing with Arya’s hair. “We all enjoy our simple pleasures, Minesha.” Minesha’s silver earpiece dangles when she laughs along with her friend.

“Do you-” The words are out of Arya’s mouth before she even notices she wants to say them. Her palms are sweating, her mouth is dry, but she continues. “Do you enjoy the work you do, then?”

“Why?” Says the woman sitting down. “Does it interest you?”

“Yes,” Arya admits, then shakes her head. “No! I don’t want - I just wonder, is all.”

Hela takes her gently by the shoulders and guides her to sit on the edge of the bed. She hadn’t noticed when or how the door closed, but she doesn’t feel as scared as maybe she should.

Hela runs her satin touch down Arya’s jaw. “How old are you, little one?” She murmurs.

Arya shifts in her seat, she’s not _that_ little, not anymore. “Seven and ten.”

“Aha!” Cries the sitting woman, jumping up and clapping her hands.

In the process she tugs her half-finished braid out of Minesha’s deft hands, which earns her a swat with one of the linens Arya brought. “Banna!” Minesha scolds.

“You are the perfect age to start!” Banna hurries to sit on the bed beside her. “Some even start earlier, you know, _many_ do -”

“I did,” adds Minesha, leaning back against the vanity.

“No, no, that’s not what I want,” Arya argues. “I just want to hear about you.”

“I’ve heard tell of different traditions here, but in Braavos, we are _revered_ , _shekra_. There is no position more desirable than ours. I have my own household, my own servants - the people listen to _me_ when I speak, not the other way around,” Banna explains excitedly, taking hold of her hands.

Arya’s brow furrows. “But the man who came with you -”

“Answers to _us_ ,” Minesha clarifies. “Even if we have to pretend differently while we visit.”

“But is it really worth it, the work you have to do for it? Why do you like it? Doesn’t it - Can’t you get - How could you _possibly_ enjoy it?” Her words fall weak to her own ears, and suddenly, she’s embarrassed. The boys always laugh at her when they talk about sex and her shoulders stiffen and her ears get red. Even when Gendry’s ears are as red as hers and he looks like he’d rather slip away than continue the conversation, he’ll bark a laugh into his mug, he’s so _desperate_ to be like the rest of them.

The women do not laugh at her like the boys do. Hela curls her feet under herself when she takes a seat on Arya’s opposite side, and Minesha sidles up behind them to run a soothing hand over Arya’s head.

“Oh, _shekra_ ,” Hela murmurs in her glistening Braavosi tongue. “Of course it can - and _should_ \- be enjoyable. Has no one ever told you this?”

Arya shakes her head. “Septa Mordane said it was a duty, but that’s all she would say, and the only times I’ve seen it the women were - were screaming -”

Banna tuts impatiently while Hela and Minesha exchange a look. “But that is not all there is. Those are the pleasures of cruel men who are undeserving of the women they have. In Braavos, the men must _earn_ their place with us.”

“ _Shekra_ , women feel pleasure just as men do,” Minesha adds. “It is harder for some to find, but the gods have deigned us just as deserving, don’t you think?”

Arya’s heart is racing. She tries not to think of the women she’s seen raped, tries to blot out the screams from her ears. “It just-“ She squeezes her eyes shut. “It just looks like it will hurt and I’m not scared of pain, I’ve felt pain, but I’m scared of - I’m scared - I don’t _know_.” She buries her head in her arms, too embarrassed to face the women who know leagues more than she ever could.

“ _Shekra_ ,” murmurs Hela, running a hand up and down Arya’s back. “I think I know of something that could help you.”

—

She waits until Willow leaves the room they share to go sleep with Jeyne, as she sometimes does when she wakes up gasping in the night. She spreads her legs open like they had told her and closes her eyes, tries to think of something good. She thinks of low voices and big, warm hands and thick forearms, maybe even wrapped around her. She thinks of thick black hair that she’d like to bury her fingers in and a drop of sweat that she’d like to chase with her tongue. She hears a faint echo of a sound in her ears, maybe the ringing of steel.

She reaches out to herself slowly, and it’s not half so scary as she thought it might be. There’s a good wetness, like they said there should be, so she spreads it around a little, and if _that_ doesn’t spark a moan in her throat. There are ridges and crests, the shape of it seems to be quite a bit more complicated than she had realized, and there’s one particular mound that feels _deliciously_ sweet when she brushes up against it. She tries to dance around it, and it’s easier than she thought, pressing into the skin harder when pressure rises in her stomach.

She gasps, the gentle throb growing more intense with each passing second, and self-designates that she has graduated to the next step. She can’t feel a hole, exactly, like they said, but when she pushes a finger inwards, it finds her, parting ways for her, slick and warm and wet around her. Her breath escapes her in a quick huff and she lets herself settle around the finger. Minesha had said likely her maidenhood itself would already be broken on account of her liking to ride, or even water dancing. All that was left to do was let the muscles grow accustomed to the intrusion. She slowly moves her finger out, then back in, but she doesn’t feel much but strange. It doesn’t feel anything like what she was doing a minute ago, doesn’t spark the same heat within her. She grows impatient and slips in another finger, trying to stretch the space to widen it.

And suddenly, a ferocious _pop_ rings through the silence. She feels the bounce of flesh and the alien shift of muscle and it _hurts_ , so terribly, so she rips her fingers away, which makes the pain worse. She has to bite down on the pillow to hold back her cry of pain, hands fluttering frantically around the area. She’s not sure what to do. Did she damage it somehow? Was she doing it wrong? Her breathing is fast, and she feels her chest might burst at any second. Has she just broken herself?

Or was she already broken? Has she always been broken in this way?

—

Anguy and Lem are making thinly veiled jokes about the girl in the corner. They won’t stop, even when Gendry glares at them. They don’t have to be such pricks about it, she thinks. They say things like she’s most likely a virgin because of the way she looks. She’d be lucky to get a dog to glance twice at her. She’ll be a spinster and live out her sad little life alone because her nose is slightly crooked and her waist isn’t small. They’d have her if they could close their eyes, alright. Wouldn’t do to let a cunt go to waste. At that one she snaps.

The knife she had been using to cut her meat flashes dangerously in front of Anguy’s throat. His laughter freezes in his mouth and he slowly raises his hands, eyeing her with disbelief. “Fuck off, Arry, we were just joking,” he breathes, the quick rise and fall of his chest betraying him. Gendry’s got his hand on her arm, just laying it there, not trying to pull her or anything. She doesn’t turn to look at him, but she knows his eyes are wide. She shakes her head slightly, lips tightening to stop the spill of fire she feels could burst out of them at any moment.

“Oi, what’s goin’ on with you anyways, Arry?” Complains Lem, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “You didn’t used to get so worked up about nothing. This is just how we talk, remember?” She shoots him a glare before leaning in closer to Anguy.

“If you so much as think about that girl again,” she says, “I’ll gut you.” She removes the knife and slumps back down into her seat, the breeches she’s wearing that day catching on the wood a little but she can’t shift lest they think she’s uncomfortable with what she’s just done. She keeps her eyes firmly trained on the half-empty plate of meat in front of her and toys with the food lightly using her knife.

One of the boys swallows, she doesn’t look up to see who, and when they finally talk again, they’re talking about when they’ll head out again, what kind of raid Beric was anticipating towards the south.

They won’t really meet her eye again for a couple of days, and she’s glad for it. She can do without men looking at her.

—

Gendry’s helping her check the snares one day when he puts his hand on her arm. She looks down at it and is startled by its size, by how firmly it wraps around her. She looks up at him with narrowed eyes.

“What?” she snaps. As much as she doesn’t completely hate feeling his callouses through her cotton tunic, they only have an hour of sunlight left, and the snares will be much harder to reset in the dark.

He opens his mouth, then closes it again. His eyes are uncertain and his brow is furrowed. His hand tightens on her arm slightly. “I just -” he starts, then coughs a little.

She rolls her eyes and shrugs out of his grip. He’s been flighty lately, won’t look her in the eye so much, and she’s tired of his beating around the bush. Her Gendry, her best friend, wouldn’t hesitate to say what was on his mind. This is some other Gendry, shaped like his own forge metal by the crude hammer of the Brotherhood’s words.

“Come on, then,” she says sourly. “We haven’t got all day.”

“Arya,” he pleads, and his voice stops her in her tracks. “Are you alright?”

She turns to face him. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just-” He runs a hand over the back of his head. His hair is getting too long, she thinks absently. She’ll have to give it a trim. Thick black hair. She tries to shake her last thought of it off. “The way you’ve been acting. It seems strange, and not like you at all. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

The words hit Arya harder than strong wind that blows around them, and she scowls. She turns to continue towards the next snare, the height of the trees around them already blocking out precious sunlight. “How do you know what’s ‘like me’?”

Gendry huffs, jogging to catch up with her. “You’re joking, right?”

The fierce look she sends him lets him know that she is decidedly _not_.

“You’re - of course I know you,” he splutters, still struggling to stay beside her. She’s always been quicker. “After all this time, Arya, are you really going to say - you know what, no, I won’t let you avoid this by making me mad.” He finally is able to shuffle in front of her and she is forced to halt her pace.

He puts his hands on her shoulders and she can’t do much but look up at his eyes, shock blue and searching and worried. “What’s wrong?” He whispers. “You know you can trust me. Tell me what’s wrong.” For a heartbeat, the tenderness of it all overwhelms her. She feels her eyes stretch wide and maybe even fill with wet, and she wonders if she should just tell him, tell him everything about the courtesans and what happened and how it hurt and how she’s just like the girl in the Inn that Lem and Anguy were japing about, going to grow up just as alone -

A rush of fear and anger all mixed up ugly rears its head in her chest and she pushes him back. _He_ doesn’t need to know, why should he, it’s _her_ business - “Don’t pretend like you know what’s going on with me,” she hisses. “You haven’t cared in months, why should you now? Too busy laughing at jokes that you don’t really think are _funny_.”

“Haven’t - haven’t cared?” He’s incredulous. “Arya - then who’s been watching out for you, if not me? Are you joking?” His voice is getting louder and she can’t deal with it. She starts to walk again.

“Not pulling me back when Anguy’s being a piece of shit isn’t ‘watching out for me,’ you prat.”

“I thought he had scared you, I was just trying to-”

“I’m not scared,” she shouts over her shoulder, the lie rolling acidic off her tongue. Her teeth feel raw with deceit.

Gendry’s laugh is what makes her spin around. “Okay, I see. After everything and you’re still - _gods_ -”

 _“_ What exactly do you see, Gendry?” She hisses, and it must be quite a sight. Her, clutching a coil of rope to her chest, disheveled in boys clothes and hair falling out of her braid and a furious rouge splotched on her skin. Just as ugly as the girl from the Inn, just a cunt put to waste, just as alone -

“You think I’m the only one who’s been weird lately?” He demands. “You won’t even come talk to me when I’m workin’ no more, as much as it used to _drive_ me bloody, you don’t even say hi in the morning or goodnight when you leave! You’ve been just as gone as I have, _m’lady_ -” he spits the word - “and I won’t pretend I don’t know why.”

“Why then?” She demands. She sees red, knows what he’s going to say before he says it.

“You’re too grown up now not to notice the difference between us, between where we’re both supposed to stand,” he laughs derisively. “Too bloody lowborn to be kin to m’lady high, right? That’s what I said and it’s _still_ true, after all this time you’d think I’d have learned a thing or two-”

“You _idiot_ ,” she cries, near to stamping her foot for frustration, wanting to cry more than she ever has and wanting to hide it even more than that. “‘Where we’re both supposed to stand?’ We’re standing in the same place, Gendry. We’re in the same place.”

She doesn’t wait to see what he says, just turns around and storms on to the next snare. She furiously wipes at her face for the rest of the night, and she checks the rest of the trappings alone.

—

The boy in the corner has been eyeing her every time she’s passed his table. He doesn’t look old, really, probably just a few years her senior with the charm of boyhood still flashing in his eyes. His hair falls into his eyes in soft golden curls and his smile is wide and free and she finds she doesn’t mind when he gives it to her. He hasn’t reached out to touch her like so many of the men do, and when she returns his smile she hears a grand shuffle behind her and the sound of a door furiously slamming shut. Her smiling at him seems to have made Gendry mad, and she doesn’t know why but she _so badly_ wants to anger Gendry further, so she grabs the boy’s wrist and leads him outside around the side of the Inn.

Gendry’s nowhere to be seen. Their only company is the quiet hush of the wind through the trees, the winter moon casting a low light on the snowy earth. She releases the boy’s wrist and he leans up against the wall, taking her in appreciatively. “Who are you?” He says, and his voice isn’t low like she wished it was but it’s alright because he’s very beautiful, and if he wants to follow her outside then maybe there isn’t something as wrong with her as she had feared.

“Arya,” she murmurs. “And you?”

“Carron Woodgard,” he says, flashing her another one of his breathtaking smiles. “I’ve seen you in here before. What’s your family name? Do you not have one? I don’t mind, for true-”

She really really needs him to shut up, needs to not hear his voice, so she moves forward and presses her lips against his. It feels hard and firm at first, and she wonders if it’s supposed to be this stiff, but then he tilts his head a little and the angle gets better and for the first time she sees what all the fuss is about. He moves his lips slowly against hers, tentatively, and she tries to copy him, tries to move like he’s moving, a gentle back and forth and pull and nip and suck, but she’s never been patient and finds herself urging him to speed up, urging his back flat against the wall and her stomach flat against his. His tongue traces the line of her lips and she opens up to let him in. He’s warm, just like she wanted, and his lips are soft, maybe just like she wanted, and he responds to her change of pace with enthusiasm.

He grabs onto her arms and flips them so that it’s her back pressed against the wall. His hands are everywhere, in her hair, on her neck, up and down her arms, over her stomach, untucking her tunic from her skirt, sliding up her bare back, and suddenly, she feels much too warm. His body boxes her in and she finds she doesn’t like it at all. She gasps when he moves his lips to trail down her neck, sucking and biting fiercer than even she had. “Stop it,” she hisses, moving her hands up to his chest and pushing hard.

He hardly even budges. He continues to kiss a path across her collarbone and grabs her hands with his own. He moves so quickly, and she so slowly, like she’s moving through water. Why didn’t he stop? “Enough,” she commands, trying to yank her hands from his grasp.

He pushes up hard against her, his entire body flush with hers, and returns his lips to her mouth, and she no longer thinks his lips soft, they’re _hard_ , they _hurt_ , he _bites_. She tries to cry out, and his mouth swallows the sound. She shoves her knee up as hard as she can, aiming for the spot between his legs, but he’s pressed so heavily against her that she can hardly breathe, let alone land a blow.

She makes a desperate sound in her throat. He had seemed so nice. He holds her wrists in one hand while she struggles wildly against him and pulls apart the laces of her tunic with the other. White light flashes across her vision, the sound of women screaming, mud, darkness, screaming, stone, and she feels her flesh so acutely between her legs, so present and soft and easily ripped.

“No,” she screams when his lips leave hers. The sound must have made him mad, because he rears back and punches her straight in the stomach. The next second his weight is off of her and she doubles forward, clutching her abdomen and sliding down the wall, deciding he must have changed his mind.

It takes a few moments for the roaring in her ears and the rolling of her stomach to subside, for her to realize that there’s shouting in the clearing next to her. She looks up to see the boy, Carron, cowering on the ground, Gendry with coiled fists and murder in his eyes. He looks ablaze as he stands over the boy, delivering kick after kick to his exposed side.

Carron holds a hand over his bleeding nose and cries out. “It’s not fair! She started it! She wanted to do it, she can’t take it back!”

Arya stares dully ahead of her, faintly aware of Harwin coming around with a sword in hand and three other men at his back. Jeyne and Willow are at her side, attempting to tighten the strings of the loose tunic that hangs around her shoulders and pick her up off the ground. Their small hands close over her arms and the men are shouting, she can’t hear what, and it’s too much noise and people and heat and she’s never felt more ashamed in her life. She bolts upright and takes off running through the trees. She hears a voice call out her name, but no footsteps follow her.

—

Gendry stumbles upon her later, curled up next to the stream with her back against a rock. She’s flinging pebbles into the low flow of water that peaks out past one ridge of ice, absentmindedly raking the ground below her to find another set before she lets them fly.

He doesn’t say anything at first, just grunts as he sits down next to her and reaches into her handful of pebbles and starts throwing them too. She’s glad for the silence, glad she doesn’t have to address the weight on her chest that she was just starting to forget when he showed up. He must sit next to her for an hour, the only noise around them the running of the water and the splash of the rocks landing in it.

After a while, he reaches into his pocket and procures a pair of gloves, handing them out to her. She hadn’t noticed how cold she was, how she had run without even a cloak, tunic still loose around her shoulders. She looks down at her fingers, and they are red and blue and stiff to move. She finds she can’t feel them much, finds that right now she would prefer not to feel too much at all. She takes the gloves anyways and slips them on, trying to still the violent and silent shivers that threaten to wrack her.

She wraps her arms around herself for the heat and she can feel him looking at her. That makes her feel warmer, too. He breathes out unsteadily, settling back against the rock.

“I’m sorry that happened,” he murmurs, his voice coarse, like he’d been screaming for years.

Arya sniffs. “Not your fault, is it now?”

Gendry shifts again. “I’ve been worried it might happen, though,” he admits. “For a while now. It’s not safe.”

Arya laughs without meaning to. It hurts her throat to make the noise. “No, it’s not,” she agrees.She spares him a glance and the skin around his eyes is a little patchier and redder than normal, almost the remnants of crying if she could bring herself to believe that.

“But I didn’t think-” He stops himself, looking out over the stream. “You’ve just never been scared of pricks like that before, and it made me wonder if - if this wasn’t the first time. That something like this happened, I mean.”

He looks pained to have asked. Arya almost wishes she could say yes, because then there would be a reason for this, a justification to the unbridled fear she feels every time she thinks of sex and herself in it.

She shakes her head. “No,” she whispers. “It didn’t. I’m not - It’s not anyone else I’m scared of. It’s me.”

He turns back to look at her, brow furrowed, and she suddenly wants to reach out to smooth the crease between his eyebrows, to run her thumb over his skin. The thought startles her. “What do you mean?” He asks.

“Something’s wrong with me,” she tells him and reminds herself. She does not elaborate further and he does not ask her to. He simply sits next to her out in the cold until the light starts to die.

—

She doesn’t feel like she can walk right. With every step she takes, she feels the skin in between her legs, feels it rub against her, feels how easily it could tear with one wrong move, one wrong look from the man in the corner -

She’s quiet at supper. Even when Anguy and Lem start being gross again, she doesn’t try to stop them. She keeps feeling Gendry’s worried eyes on her, but she can’t look back, can’t see what she’s afraid of reflected there.

She doesn’t feel like she can walk right.

—

She sneaks down to the kitchens one night to drink out of the water pail or maybe even sneak a mug of ale to wash away the soreness of her dry throat. The candles are lit, though, when she is about to round the corner from the stairs, so she flattens herself against the wall and prays Jeyne didn’t hear the fourth step creak.

She’s surprised to hear voices. When the kitchen has late night occupants, it’s usually just Jeyne, sometimes Willow too, working on preparing the next day’s roast. Willow’s soundly asleep upstairs, so it’s not her Jeyne’s talking to. It’s especially not her, Arya decides, when the voice murmuring in tandem with Jeyne’s is low and altogether too masculine.

“Anguy was talking about the same ugly girl he always talks about, and she didn’t even spare him a glance!” The voice exclaims, and her stomach drops. It’s Gendry.

“Have you talked to her, then?” Jeyne says. Arya can hear her fiddling with the linens cabinet. “Only you’d be able to get it out of her, you know.”

“I have,” Gendry admits. “Something’s wrong. She won’t say what, though. I think she’s scared of something but she’s too bloody stubborn to admit it.”

Jeyne huffs. “Of course she’s scared, that man took her out back to rape her and you don’t just _forget_ that if you’re a girl -”

“No, no, even before that,” Gendry pushes, and Arya finds herself wondering after Jeyne with a twist in her chest. “But that might’ve - I don’t know, Jeyne, but she’s not herself and I don’t know how to help.”

Jeyne sighs. “Sometimes there’s nothing you can do to help.” Arya hears her close the linen cabinet and turn the lock. There’s a long silence, so long that Arya peeks around the corner to see what they might be getting up to, keeping as best she can in the shadow of the wall.

Gendry breaks their apparent stare by ducking his head and running his hand over his hair. “I worry for her, is all.”

Jeyne gives him a look. “I know you do.”

Arya turns and flits as silently as she can back up the stairs, avoiding the creaky fourth step altogether, more determined than ever to burn the fear out of her heart.

—

Gendry sleeps in a small room at the back of the forge and he never bars the door. She knows because when they first arrived at the Inn years ago, she had snuck into the place he slept during countless sleepless nights just to sit on the floor while he snored, just to feel like the things that scared her weren’t crazy imaginings of her tired mind, because he had gone through them too.

She finds it similarly unbarred this night and pushes gently on the handle, her eyes hard-adjusting to the pitch black of the dark. The winter clouds cover the sky tonight, no stars or moon to be seen.

Her fingers tremble as she shuts the door softly behind her, and she squeezes her eyes shut for a moment to steady herself. This is the only way out, the only way out of the dark little room she’s shut herself in, and besides knowing that it _has_ to happen she _wants_ it to happen. She realized before but hadn’t been able to admit it to herself. She _wants_ to know what it feels like with him, and only with him, because he was right, who else could she trust? Maybe it would make him trust her more, too, make him realize she’s not going to disappear at any second just because she was born to a different station than he was, not now that where she is is so thoroughly a part of who she is.

She steels herself with this thought, marches directly to his door, done with being quiet. He sleeps on his back and his mouth hangs open, soft sounds emanating from his throat. He wears no clothes, that she can see, and only a thin blanket covers most of his lower half. His right calf peaks out, hanging lazily off the side of the bed, and she has the strange impulse to touch it.

Deftly undoing the ties of her cloak and letting it fall to the floor, she follows her impulse. She runs a tentative hand up his exposed leg, the hair of it coarse against her hands and the solidness of the muscle underneath sturdy and warm. He still sleeps, so she throws caution to the wind and hoists herself up over him on the cot, swinging a leg over his hips. She straddles his torso and leans forward on her hands, running fingers over his lips, so much _softer_ than she ever would have expected, and this time she finds she doesn’t mind at all. He hums appreciatively, eyelashes fluttering against his cheekbones. _He’s beautiful_ , she thinks, and it’s more true of him than any boy she’s thought it of before. It makes her less afraid. His hand comes up to rest on her hip and she stills, not expecting the movement, but it doesn’t make her want to pull away, doesn’t make her want to run like the rest of them have.

She lowers her lips to his, and if she’s grateful for anything fucking Carron showed her it’s how to tilt her head when she kisses. She moves her lips slowly against him, testing to see if he’ll bloody _wake up_ , if the soft press of her heat will arouse him. He tastes a little like sweat, the salt sticking to her teeth, so she bites his bottom lip a little, not sure if she’s trying to enhance the feeling or get rid of it. He groans loudly at this and his arms come more fully around her. He sits up more quickly than she’s expecting. She falls down his body but he catches her, one arm barred firmly around her waist, holding her tight to him, the other in her hair. He presses his lips back against hers, opening his mouth to let her in, moving his tongue in languid strokes against hers. It tastes so much better than other times she’s been kissed, she feels like this might actually _mean_ something, might actually _be_ something for her. She keens, runs her hands over his shoulders and down his front, and he’s so much firmer than she had expected, but it’s nicer, nicer than Carron, nicer than _anything_ , and even with the way he holds her she feels she could get away if she wanted to, could vault off of him if she had to. And Gendry, Gendry would let her go. Of course he would.

At her sound, Gendry freezes. He pulls back from her, arms still gripping her tightly, and opens his eyes. “Arya,” he breathes, and it sounds strangled and bruised. His eyes flit back and forth between hers like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing.“What -”

Of _course_ he would have to go and frustrate her already. “Sh,” she hushes him, pushing back to his mouth more forcefully. The blanket covering his legs is starting to slip away, and she rolls her hips against him in a way she didn’t know she wanted to so that maybe he’ll be convinced, please let him be convinced -

He groans again, deeper this time, she feels it vibrate against her, then all but rips her from his lap. He deposits her on the end of his cot and springs out of bed, and by the time she recovers to a sitting position he is scrambling to pull up and button the trousers that he haphazardly threw on his body. She can’t tell if the heat in her belly is arousal or anger, but whatever it is, he’s causing it, and it’s a sensation that she so desperately needs to relieve.

“What is it?” She snaps, fisting the blanket to stop her hands from shaking.

“What - what?” He splutters, his face redder than she’s ever seen, burning almost as much as she’s sure she does. “Arry, why did you -”

“Because I wanted to,” she hisses, feeling her defense flare back up. Is he really going to fight her on this? Is he really going to put a cunt to waste, like Lem and Anguy said? Is she really just as ugly as that girl in the corner? “And you didn’t seem to be so mad about it thirty seconds ago, so why are you now?”

“I’m not mad,” but he’s laughing a bit like a mad man. He runs his hands over his hair, she wants to hit his hands away, it’s such a _bad_ habit and he needs to stop, it makes it way too obvious when he’s nervous. “I’m not, really. But this is - a lot, Arya, and I need to - I just didn’t -” He stops, searching for the words, and she’s never felt so small.

“Didn’t want to?” She suggests quietly, folding her hands over her lap. Her shoulders hurt from the tension she holds in them.

Gendry sighs. “Arry -”

“This is what’s wrong with me,” she says out loud without even meaning to. She looks up to see his eyes questioning, but he hasn’t said anything, he’s waiting for her, giving her a way out. Just like she knew he would. “I don’t know if I can -” it’s harder to say than she thought, she shudders - “can lay with a man, I don’t know if I’m able to or if something’s wrong with me and I need to find out because I need to know _now_.”

He looks as confused as she feels. “Why would you not be able to?”

She sobs and he starts, clearly not expecting it. She slaps a hand to her mouth. She hadn’t been expecting it either. “They always said to me that I wasn’t a proper lady. Everyone’s said it, all the time, and I thought that was what I wanted, until I realized there were parts of being a woman that I _did_ want, but I can’t even do them, and what if they were right? What if I’m not really a woman, just this - this mistake, all because I can’t do the one thing women are truly designed to do?” She shakes her head, gasps through her tears. “I need to find out, Gendry. Everything’s changing and I just need to be in control of _one thing_ please just let me have this _one thing_.”

He’s quiet, taking her in. He kneels forward slowly to be at her level, sitting up on his knees. He puts bracing hands on her arms, and she finds it hard to look directly at him, still sniffing and trying to steady her shaking breath. He rubs her skin in small circles with his thumbs, his gaze piercing and unrelenting.

“I don’t completely understand, and I don’t think that I could,” he admits. “But I do think that anything I say or do isn’t going to help you, Arry. You need to figure out how you feel before I can help you. I can’t just be - you can’t just do this kind of thing to help other people. Do you understand what I mean?”

She does and she doesn’t, but she doesn’t want to say that she feels pinpricks of guilt tugging at her heart. She didn’t mean to use him, just meant to free herself, free herself from her cage, but he’s not the key to the cage, she should have known, people aren’t keys.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, but he shakes his head. He takes the blanket from her hands and wraps it around her shoulders. He hesitates for only a beat before taking her face in his hands and pressing a firm kiss to her mouth, lingering against her, then pressing another quick kiss to her forehead. The second he breaks away he turns and walks out of the forge.

She lies down slowly on his cot, not sure where he’s going seeing as it’s winter and the middle of the night and he’s half dressed, but she won’t fight him, not when she’s as tired as she is now.

The kiss he left her with echoes on her lips until she falls asleep, and she has a fleeting thought that it might mean something before she fades. He’s not a key, but he _is_ a blacksmith. Maybe he can fashion her one.

—

It’s only a few nights later that she’s lying on her back in the room she shares with Willow, twisting and turning on the coarse, sweat-drenched sheets. Willow had gone downstairs to be with Jeyne, and it was the middle of the winter, so there was no reason that her room should be as hot as it was. Arya wears nothing but a thredbare shift, and still the material is sticking uncomfortably to her skin. She pulls the fabric apart from her chest in frustration, gasping when it rubs against her nipple.

Something fiery ticks between her legs, and she grits her teeth. No matter what she feels, she won’t give into that, won’t even try again, she’s learned her lesson. She twists around on the straw mattress, every second growing more uncomfortable, her breasts like stones against her chest. She just wants to lie on her _fucking_ stomach, is that too much to ask?

She can’t help the frustrated sound that springs from her throat as she shifts again, still not finding the place she needs for sleep. Her fingers slip down between her legs before she realizes it. There’s almost an itch, almost a pull, almost a need.

She’s moving her fingers, or they’re moving her, like entities that have minds of their own. They push and pull at her sensitive skin, and she’s surprised by the slickness. Surprised that they stoke the fire rather than relieving it. She tilts her head, almost like she were kissing someone, and lets her eyes fall closed, because she’s safe, it’s just her, just herself. She feels around slowly, finding a rhythm, finding a pattern. Sticking to the outside feels _good_. It feels right. She presses harder, softer, changes her pace. She pushes up and down, finding the mound that she had brushed the first time. She flicks it. Figures it out.

When she comes, it’s with a soft jolt of surprise, and she doesn’t jerk her hand away. She tides herself through it, breathing hard, and she can’t help but smile.

She falls back onto her pillow, sated and ready for sleep, realizing that she found the right way to be a woman because it didn’t exist at all.

—

She makes her way to him that next morning and he’s already risen, is just tying the knots in his breeches when she pushes into the room. The sun filters in through his dusty, clouded window and hits him just below his brow, the curve of his cheekbones illuminated and pronounced. Drops of melting snow drip slowly down the window pane, and somehow, the cold air has a promise of warmth in it. She gives him a wolfish grin.

“I figured it out.”

He’s still for a minute before a smile reaches his face, too, and the upturned corners of his lips pull at her heart. She wants to reach out and touch his face, so she does.

“My turn, then?” He whispers against the skin of her wrist. She nods, and he pushes forward to kiss her. She smiles against him, ready to teach him, no longer afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @laura-log


End file.
